The Unmistakable Scent of Gardenias (Haunted Hearts Series Book 6)

by Denise Moncrief

  Sophia patted her hips. “I’m not starving, Momma.”

  She would have never called herself skinny. In fact, she was proud of having curves in all the right places. Her stick-thin friends in middle school had all expanded evenly while Sophia’s curves had contoured into very feminine proportions. Dylan had always said he liked her rather ample backside. Did he still like her butt the size that it was?

  Maggie Cannon’s eyes zoomed past her to the three people standing behind Sophia. “You said you were coming for a visit. You never said you were bringing people with you. What is he doing here?” She glared at Dylan and then smiled at Jordan, who was standing right behind him.

  Dylan had never been sure if Sophia’s mother approved of him. At least, that was his complaint while they were together in college. He began his pleading with a rather contrite tone in his voice. “Before you say anything—”

  “Sophia, you don’t come to see me for months, and when you do show up in the middle of the night past any decent person’s suppertime, you bring that with you.” She huffed and ran a hand through her short bleached-blonde hair. “And you bring… Is that you Jordan?”

  Why was Maggie pretending? She’d already made eye contact with Jordan. Sometimes her mother was a big, manipulative fake.

  He grinned at Maggie. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And you brought a friend with you, Jordan. Ya’ll come in.” Maggie swung the door all the way open.

  Maggie’s flat tone suggested she was not happy that Jordan had a woman with him. More than once, Maggie had implied to Sophia that Jordan was a much better catch than Dylan. Whatever that meant.

  At least, Maggie was pretending to be happy to see them all. Sophia had counted on her mother to refrain from ignoring the rules of southern hospitality. She wasn’t in the mood for more drama.

  “Have you had supper yet?” Syrup oozed in her mother’s tone. Arriving late and hungry was rude, in her mother’s opinion, but Maggie would think failing to offer them something to eat was even ruder.

  Sophia’s stomach rumbled as she ventured a few feet into her mother’s living room. As always, Maggie’s house was clean enough to eat off the floor. Everything in its place. The whole neat freak thing had always been disturbing. Maggie hadn’t passed the gene on to Sophia. She liked her life cozily untidy.

  “We’re not going to stay long, Momma. I just wanted… I wondered if I could…”

  Her request would seem oddly timed. How could she explain what she wanted to do without telling her mother what she’d been doing the last few weeks? Momma wouldn’t like her poking around in another family’s scandalous past. As far as Maggie Cannon was concerned, people swept their dirt beneath the carpet for a very good reason, and it was good manners to ignore it there.

  “Nonsense. Ya’ll came all the way over here from New Orleans, right? It’s already late. You’re going to spend the night, aren’t you?” Then Maggie turned an evil eye toward Dylan as if arriving past nine at night was his fault.

  Sophia could read her mother’s mind with ease. Dylan had better not accept her empty offer of overnight lodging. Not if he ever wanted back into Maggie’s good graces.

  “Well, if you don’t mind fixing up a sandwich or something, that would be very much appreciated, but we’ll…” He pointed at Jordan and Chelsea, and then at himself. “We’ll find someplace else to spend the night. That way you and Sophia can have some time together.” He turned a chastising look toward Sophia. “Especially since you haven’t seen each other in a while.”

  Maggie had an almost approving look on her face. If she could have gotten away with it, Sophia would have stuck her tongue out at Dylan.

  “Can we talk, Mrs. Cannon? I need to straighten out some things.”

  “Oh, okay.” Maggie nodded, but suspicion glowed in her brown eyes. Very often Maggie Cannon’s opinions of someone were cast in cement.

  “I’m sure you want to know why Sophia would bring me around, and I’m sure you’re wondering what my…um…intentions are. So I want to make things perfectly clear.”

  Intentions? That sounded old-fashioned, but Dylan had remembered enough about her mother to know exactly what kind of phrasing would get her mother’s attention, if not her blessing. Despite his earlier reluctance to face Maggie, he had stepped up to the challenge, and Sophia beamed at him with gratitude and a hint of pride.

  “You two talk.” Sophia grabbed Chelsea by the hand and wiggled her pointer finger at Jordan. “We can make some sandwiches.”

  Chelsea took her lead and pulled Jordan into the kitchen with them. Jordan hovered near the door, and Sophia hissed at him. “Get away from there. If she catches you eavesdropping, you won’t be her favorite any longer.”

  Jordan spluttered. “What do you mean her favorite?”

  Sophia shrugged as if her mother’s opinions were of minimal importance. “She’s always liked you better than Dylan.”

  “Surely, she knows that we were never together.”

  No, there had never been any possibility of that. Once Sophia had met Dylan in college, there had been no one else on her radar.

  “Momma chooses to ignore what Momma chooses to ignore. I’m sure she wasn’t excited to see you here with another woman.”

  Chelsea snickered, but thankfully didn’t comment. Sophia was ready for that bit of conversation to die.

  Voices rose and fell from the living room while Sophia and Chelsea stacked the sandwiches and found some chips. Jordan made himself useful and poured them all a glass of ice water. The meal was ready and waiting when Maggie and Dylan pushed through the door into the kitchen. Dylan stayed a few paces behind Maggie, a chagrined expression plastered on his pale face. Maggie Cannon knew how to chew someone up and spit him out again.

  As her mother passed Sophia, she whispered near her ear. “If he ever hurts you again, you let your momma know, honey. I’ll find your Paw Paw’s shotgun and take care of his sorry, good for nothing—”

  “Momma!”

  Maggie Cannon rarely used crude, rude, or disgusting language. What she had almost said was a telling departure from her usual prim and proper manners.

  “Well, I will.”

  She kissed her mother on the cheek. “I’ll make sure you have a clear shot at him.”

  Her mother smiled, despite her apparent confusion at Sophia’s offer of assistance. “I’ll always be your momma. Don’t you forget that.”

  “No, Momma. I won’t forget.” Sophia loved her momma more than anything in the world in that moment. Those same words had passed between them from time to time ever since she could remember. Their utterance gave her a strong sense of stability in a wobbly world.

  Still… The last thing Sophia wanted was for her mother to aim a double barrel shotgun at Dylan.

  “Now, what are you doing here? I know you didn’t come here just for a visit.”

  The direct approach was always best with her mother. “I found some old letters in a house I’m helping to restore, and they reminded me of something I’d seen in Maw Maw’s things, but I’m not sure what. So I was wondering if I could go through those boxes in the garage and try to figure out what I’m trying to remember.”

  Maggie Cannon plopped down in the nearest chair. “Well, that is odd.” That was her phrase for anything Maggie didn’t quite understand. “Eat your sandwich first.” With those four words, she’d gained her mother’s somewhat reluctant agreement.

  ****

  Dylan ripped open a box and pushed the flaps aside. “My God, your mother is scary.”

  Sophia turned her head and grinned so he couldn’t see her amused expression. “Why? What did you say to her?”

  “What did I say to her? You mean what did she say to me. That woman said she would shoot my ass off if I ever did anything to hurt you again, and you know what? I think she would.”

  Dylan had better believe her mother. When Maggie Cannon considered a situation important enough to express a straightforward opinion, she usually said what she me
ant and meant what she said.

  “I know. She told me she would.”

  “Would she?”

  Why was he asking? He’d just stated that he thought Maggie was capable of assault with a deadly weapon. Sophia shrugged. It might not hurt to let him wonder.

  After much debate, Jordan and Chelsea had left the Cannon home in search of a motel for the night. Maggie had agreed to let Dylan crash on the sofa in the living room. So it was just the two of them sorting through her grandmother’s possessions.

  “I can’t believe Momma let you stay. That must have been quite a conversation you had. What did you tell her?”

  A pile of her grandmother’s stuff lay on the ground at his feet. He paused with a strange-looking ceramic figurine in his hand. “I told her the truth. That I’d been a douche-bag and I didn’t deserve you and I’d die before I hurt you again. That’s when she yelled some ugly things at me. I won’t tell you what she called me. No need to tarnish your mother’s image.”

  “I’m well aware of my mother’s personality. You don’t have to shield me from her behavior. Her language can get pretty salty when she’s pissed off.”

  “I’m sure she was speaking a dead language. She probably cast a spell or put a curse on me.”

  Sophia laughed. “She digs deep into her Cajun roots when she’s fired up.”

  “Honest to God, I thought she was going to cut my liver out and eat it for supper.”

  Sophia nodded. When Dylan was right, he was so very right. “She’s already eaten her supper. She said so.”

  “Ten times.” He stared at a dilapidated hat he’d tugged out of the box. “But I don’t blame her for chewing me out. She’s your momma. That’s what momma’s do.”

  She sighed and slit the seal on another box with a box cutter. She held the tool in front of her and inspected it from all angles. Why did her mother have three of them? Probably got them on sale three for a dollar.

  She set the cutter down and ripped open the lid of the box. “You know we’re going to have to go back to Wakefield.”

  His silence was all the agreement she needed. If Dylan disagreed, he’d say so.

  “We can’t stop now.”

  He drew in a deep breath and pulled something unidentifiable out of his box.

  She pressed her point. “I want to know what really happened to Celia. I have to know. I have to find out…for her.”

  Even as she said the words, something about her statement was off. The woman in the cemetery had asked for her help, had wanted Sophia to free her. She hadn’t mistaken that, so why did Sophia get the nagging feeling that she was missing something important?

  “I have to help her.”

  He finally turned to look at her. “Why?”

  “I have to do this. I don’t think I can live with myself if I don’t.”

  He stood to his feet before wiping his hands on his pants. It only took him two steps to cross the floor to where she sat.

  He knelt in front of her. “Sophia, I’m worried about you. I think that house has gotten to you.”

  She laughed. “No, it hasn’t. Well, maybe it has. Nothing’s been the same since the first time I went out there.”

  He pushed a piece of loose hair behind her ear, a tender gesture that shouldn’t have surprised her. But it did. Dylan was full of surprises. Always had been.

  “You know I’ve never believed in ghosts, but I do believe there is a supernatural realm, and for most of my life, I haven’t wanted anything to do with it. The unknown is something that can’t be controlled. I don’t want you to get hurt messing with something we don’t understand. I don’t want me to get hurt either. The damage that can be done to the heart and the soul, to the psyche…that kind of thing doesn’t mend like the flesh. Soul wounds are so much harder to heal.”

  “That’s kind of deep, Dylan.” She tried to play it off, but her lame comment fell flat.

  “This is serious.”

  He was serious. Dead serious.

  “I know. It’s just…I feel this deep sense of obligation to her as if I owe her.”

  “She died long before you were born. How could you owe her anything?”

  With her eyes still focused on his face, she reached into the box next to her. As soon as her hand met an object, her fingertips tingled and burned. In another second, a packet of letters fell into her lap. She stared at the purple ribbon tied around the yellowing envelopes. Her pulse raced. The ink seemed to jump off the paper at her. Spiky handwriting had been scribbled on the front. The black ink had smudged and faded after years of storage in a humid climate.

  “This is it. This is what I remembered. It has to be.”

  Gently, she unknotted the ribbon around the bundle. With trembling fingers, she pulled a letter from the first envelope. The heavy scent of gardenias assaulted her as soon as she lifted the envelope flap. The writing was difficult to read, written with many flourishes. She turned pages until she found the end of the letter. At the bottom, the author had signed with a single initial, an L in the same style as the H on the letters she’d found at Wakefield Manor.

  Her heart pounded furiously in her chest.

  Just as she began to read, the door to the outside burst open. Sophia shoved the letter into the pocket of her pants. As soon as her mother stood over her and her eyes focused on the pile of letters in her lap, Maggie reacted with fierceness Sophia would have never expected.

  “If I had known you were intent on digging up old family secrets, I would have never let you come out here. Give those to me.”

  Sophia held the letters out to her mother.

  Maggie shook with fear or rage or some other emotion that Sophia couldn’t quite name. The storm passed as quickly as it came. A faked smile spread across her lips, ever the polite hostess. “I think it might be time to put all this away for the night. I want to lock up before I go to bed.”

  Never had her mother acted so panicked or her usual hospitality seemed so stilted. There was a story lodged in the deepest dungeon of family history, and Maggie was the kind of woman that would keep family secrets locked up tight until hell froze over.

  ****

  It had taken all the guts Sophia had to defy her mother, but she had. After she was sure Maggie had fallen asleep, she had crept back out to the garage and continued to snoop in her grandmother’s belongings. Unease had settled into the pit of her stomach as she had sorted through the detritus of Maw Maw’s life. Sophia had felt like she was invading her grandmother’s privacy, almost like she was stirring up things that were better left buried with the dead. She’d found nothing else of interest, but had grabbed the old family Bible and hid it in her things.

  Finally, Jordan picked them up from Maggie’s house and the four of them had headed back to New Orleans. As the car wheels rolled over another buckle in the concrete, Sophia pulled the Bible from the bag at her feet and opened it in her lap. She turned to the middle section were family history was recorded. Births. Deaths. Marriages.

  She traced her finger down the lists of names and birthdates. Families had many children in the past. Numerous names lined the pages in several different handwriting styles and ink colors. Her mother had married a Cannon, but before that, the family tree was heavy with Cajun surnames. She sucked back a surprised gasp when she found an unexpected entry.

  Her wobbly voice broke the unnatural silence in Jordan’s vehicle. “My great-grandmother was a Duchesne.”

  An electrical charge seemed to surge around them. She rubbed her upper arms where her skin prickled with heat.

  “Wasn’t that the name of the family who built Wakefield Manor?” Jordan leaned over to view the Bible with her.

  “Yes, it was.” She stared at the spiky writing that had recorded the birth dates of the Duchesne twins, Leticia and Harriett. “L and H.”

  A deep down knowing settled into her soul. Nothing coherent she could put into words, just a feeling that she’d found something significant. “My great-grandmother and her sister were born in
1920. Years after the Duchesnes had lost any interest in Wakefield Plantation, but when I was in the manor house, the letters I found were signed with an H. The letters I found in my mother’s garage were signed the same way, only with an L. This isn’t a coincidence. My great-grandmother wrote those letters to her sister, but why would I find her letters in a bedroom at Wakefield Manor, unless the Duchesnes still had a connection to the people that lived there?”

  She tore her gaze away from the Bible and stared out the window at the scenery rushing past them in a blur of green and gray. “Maybe that’s why I’ve always felt drawn to Wakefield Manor.”

  A million possibilities circled through her consciousness.

  Dylan interrupted her inner thoughts. “Maybe what the old woman said about it being in your blood…”

  She slammed the Bible closed. “I don’t like it.”

  Chelsea broke into their intense dialogue. “You have to find out how you’re connected or you will never rest.”

  “Maybe that’s why you feel obligated.”

  Dylan’s observation punched her in the gut. She didn’t want to believe she had a blood connection to the tragic lives of the ghosts who now haunted the halls of Wakefield Manor, but her heart, mind, and soul throbbed with intuition. She feared Dylan was right.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Several days passed without incident, but then Dylan and Sophia had only returned to Wakefield Manor long enough to retrieve Dylan’s truck. After the events of the past week, it seemed like a nice break to spend time in the suburbs of New Orleans.

  Dylan scrambled eggs while the bread toasted. Sophia sat at the table sipping coffee and sighing every once in a while. He glanced her way and smiled. She was beautiful first thing in the morning with her hair tousled and her hazel eyes still bleary with sleep.

  He’d loved the time they’d spent getting reacquainted. Truthfully, it was like they’d never split up. They’d adapted to being together so quickly it seemed unreal.

  His heart hurt when he considered the time they’d wasted. Once again, his mind turned to Audrey and how he’d been a fool about her. He thought maybe Sophia had forgiven him, but he was certain she hadn’t forgotten what he’d done. If Audrey ever showed up again… He wasn’t sure what he’d do if she appeared after so many years.